cluberti

Without the STOP code and other memory and module data that was on the BSOD, it'll be hard to determine what's going on. If you can disable the "Automatic Restart" in the Advanced Startup and Recovery section of the System applet in the control panel, you should be able to see that data the next time the issue occurs.

If you want to see the executable name that is creating the folder, run filemon (from sysinternals) and then delete the folder. When it is recreated, you will see what process created the file - that will help you figure out which virus/trojan/malware app caused it, as you can then search that .exe file in google to see what it belongs to.

The instructions for how to use the WinPE disc and it's components are in the ref.chm file that is on the CD and can also be downloaded from oem.microsoft.com. It can also be accomplished by following this post: http://www.mcse.ms/message1142291.html Google is your friend, and read the help files.

I'm not even sure about enforcement here in the US, as these are almost too draconian - I have a bad feeling about this in general.

Windows XP x64 and Windows Server 2003 x64 are actually both the same kernel, built from Windows Server 2003 SP1. Therefore, no new SP.

Without a memory dump of the application that shows us what is actually at that memory address, not entirely. You can always disable all third party extensions in IE and see if that resolves the error, as well as disabling any add-ons if you're on XP SP2 w/ IE6 or IE7 or IE7 on Vista. Otherwise, get and fully install userdump (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/241215), configure it to take a dump of the IE process when it crashes, and then you or someone else can open the file in windbg or cdb (part of the debugging tools for Windows, http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/deb...g/default.mspx) to see what is on the stack, and make more of a determiniation what is causing the issue.

On smaller disks (under 200GB or so), FAT32 is indeed faster than NTFS due to the lack of security and journaling overhead. However, when the disk size increases (or there are 4 or more partitions on the disk), NTFS gets faster than FAT32, due to the fact that NTFS stores smaller files in the Master File Table (MFT) to increase performance. Instead of moving the read heads to the beginning of the disk to read an MFT entry, and then to the middle or end of the disk to read the actual file, the heads can quickly move to the beginning of the disk and read both entries at the same time. Larger files are still read the same, but most smaller files are read this way on NTFS.

It's the audio chipset causing this (it's likely a Realtek or Conextant AC97 chipset), and it's a known issue. Did you install any drivers into the riprep image before imaging it? See the following URL: http://www.google.com/search?q=Toshiba+RIS...amp;startPage=1 Yet another strike against using riprep images, and I will as always suggest scripting flat risetup images before using a riprep image (only use riprep as a last resort in my opinion, rather than a viable deployment option considered first).

At that point, you need to look into using WinPE and a winbom.ini file to accomplish what you seek, as the Windows text-mode installer doesn't have the smarts to do exactly what you are looking to do.

You could run regmon while importing the file to see if there are any failures, or do auditing on those keys to see what is happening when you attempt to set them (or both).

You could use them together though - if your wireless router supports 802.11x, you could install IAS on the 2003 box and use it as the RADIUS server for your router. Much greater security than simple WEP or WPA when paired with MAC filtering .

That's assuming winlogon is corrupt, and some 3rd party hook isn't causing the crash. Replacing winlogon.exe from the CD might help, but it would be safer to do an sfc /scannow from within the OS if possible, as replacing winlogon.exe from an older version will definitely have dire consequences (you'll get mismatched .exe/.dll versions), and cause even more system instability. Unless he has the exact version of winlogon on the CD as is on the disk, that is not advisable.

If you mean software that phones home, yes, Vista checks home every so often to verify that the OS is genuine and activated properly. If you mean antispyware software, Windows Defender (formerly MS Antispyware, formerly Giant Antispyware) is built-in and can be accessed via the Control Panel or under All Programs in the Start Menu.

If you open up the Help and Support link on the start menu, you'll see a link for help in performing Windows Remote Assistance operations right on the front page.

Since winlogon is a critical system application, it crashing for ANY reason will cause a STOP 0x21a bugcheck (as will a crash of csrss.exe or lsass.exe). Do you have any third-party logon clients installed on that server (Citrix, Novell), or perhaps software like PCAnywhere that would hook into winlogon.exe? If all else fails, configure it for a complete dump, and hope the system generates a memory.dmp file the next time it crashes - analysis of the .dmp file will tell us exactly what was loaded at the memory addresses given in the error, and point to the culprit.

Aegis, that's not a good example of an application requiring a paging file - 2GB is the process limit, and if a process leaks or does a "land grab" and reaches the utilization of it's 2GB allocation, it will likely crash. This is not an indication of the need for a paging file, but an indication that the application will crash if it requests address space beyond it's 2GB limit (and why does it need 2GB in the first place? That's either a VERY hungry application, or it's poorly written and leaks all over the place).

Well, I must say that it appears true that this is limited even on retail copies. I guess we'll be seeing lawsuits and antitrust proceedings on this soon enough, and that's frustrating. I hate when we do silly things like this, for no real reason - and it is indeed very possible Microsoft has overlooked the PC enthusiast, they've done it before...

I think there needs to be some clarification on this from Microsoft - assuming you're reinstalling on the same hardware, it should be no issue. However, for those people who replace hardware every 1 - 2 years, there needs to be clarification as to what happens when hardware is retired, and the OS is installed on new hardware. I'm hoping that it will be the same as previous versions of Windows, where as long as the old installation is wiped from the pre-existing hardware, the new hardware can then be installed on and activated. I'll see what I can find on this.

There is a provision allowing you to take your software and transfer it from one "device" to another "device" once. Since you *technically* aren't purchasing Windows Vista itself, but a license to use the software, that may mean that if you install a new motherboard a second time and phone in, they won't allow you to transfer it, I don't know. I can't imagine that's very enforceable, but then again it may be enforced. This is definitely a change from Windows XP, and I can't say I agree or disagree with it on technical terms (but on a personal level, it does suck). Hopefully you won't have to upgrade or replace your motherboard that often .

The hibernate functionality actually uses the ACPI BIOS to boot, and writes a bit of data to the BIOS and syncs with the real-time clock to make this work. It does set some registry entries as well, and I don't know if the bit written to the BIOS is necessary - however, that particular bit of Windows data isn't public, so it's probably going to have to be trial and error, and perhaps system snapshots before and after and some boot information via filemon and regmon that'll get you to where you want to go, if it's even possible.

Safe mode command-prompt should be sufficient to run the task - I'm not sure this has even been tried; although safe mode may have been, safe mode command prompt was not specified as attempted. Since safe mode command prompt loads absolutely no shell components, it should keep the error from occurring and should allow running the applications (as they'll run as children of the safe command prompt, not in any other shell context). Obviously if that fails, a repair install is in order, but it would at least be something to try, especially if there's data on there he'd rather not have to recover.

Does the PC in question have A/V and antispyware software installed? (it should!) If not, get them by downloading from another PC and transfer the files over, via some external method (USB key, external hard disk, CD, etc). That's actually probably the best way to get autoruns and shellexview on the box as well.

What? I'm confused - are you expecting to reactivate your install of Vista on new hardware without issue? Unfortunately, that's not allowed and you will have to call Microsoft to reactivate (you do the dance where you give them the code on the screen, then they give you a code to enter into the input box, and it's activated). Note that this is the same for Windows XP, within a 6 month period of actiavtion for retail products (and OEM products require you to do this every time you reinstall, regardless of time passed!).

Oddly enough, I've tracked it back down to my audio driver for the POS realtek chipset on board. After doing some "surgery" on the drivers, I've verified that the signed Realtek drivers are nothing more than a basic rebrand of their XP x64 drivers, which appear to be causing the issue in Vista. I've swapped them out for drivers for the HD Realtek audio drivers I have installed on my laptop (not signed), and I've gotten everything working without the paging activity. Seems odd, but it's the darned audio drivers.

The answer to your question is both yes and no, and the answer changes depending on how much time you want to spend on it. Integration of a Service Pack into an i386 source overwrites quite a few files, modifies the .ini files with the new file data, and then dumps the .cab and .cat files for the service pack update into the i386 directory. If you know exactly which files were modified on your XP disc when you integrated SP2, you could just copy over RTM versions of those files into i386, delete the SP .cab and .cat files, and you'd be back to an RTM disc. However, if you want to do it the quick way, start over from a clean i386 from another disc of the same type (Pro OEM, Pro Retail, Pro VLK, whichever version you are using).